him down, but the simple quietness of him
as he sat with hands crossed on the pommel of his saddle, face calm and
set, eyes unwavering and fearless, had the effect that nothing else he
could have done would have brought about--and they swerved on either
side of him, while the rest swerved, too, like sheep, one stirrup
brushing his, as they swept by. Hale rode slowly on. He could hear
the mountaineers yelling on top of the hill, but he did not look
back. Several bullets sang over his head. Most likely they were simply
"bantering" him, but no matter--he rode on.

The blacksmith, the storekeeper and one passing drummer were coming in
from the woods when he reached the hotel.

"A gang o' those Falins," said the storekeeper, "they come over lookin'
for young Dave Tolliver. They didn't find him, so they thought they'd
have some fun"; and he pointed to the hotel sign which was punctuated
with pistol-bullet periods. Hale's eyes flashed once but he said
nothing. He turned his horse over to a stable boy and went across to the
little frame cottage that served as office and home for him. While he
sat on the veranda that almost hung over the mill-pond of the other
stream three of the Falins came riding back. One of them had left
something at the hotel, and while he was gone in for it, another put a
bullet through the sign, and seeing Hale rode over to him. Hale's blue
eye looked anything than friendly.

"Don't ye like it?" asked the horseman.

"I do not," said Hale calmly. The horseman seemed amused.

"Well, whut you goin' to do about it?"

"Nothing--at least not now."

"All right--whenever you git ready. You ain't ready now?"

"No," said Hale, "not now." The fellow laughed.

"Hit's a damned good thing for you that you ain't."

Hale looked long after the three as they galloped down the road. "When I
start to build this town," he thought gravely and without humour, "I'll
put a stop to all that."

VIII

On a spur of Black Mountain, beyond the Kentucky line, a lean horse was
tied to a sassafras bush, and in a clump of rhododendron ten yards away,
a lean black-haired boy sat with a Winchester between his stomach and
thighs--waiting for the dusk to drop. His chin was in both hands, the
brim of his slouch hat was curved crescent-wise over his forehead, and
his eyes were on the sweeping bend of the river below him. That was
the "Bad Bend" down there, peopled with ancestral enemies and the
head-quarters of their leade